


One-Track

by comeincomeout



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Flashback-heavy to Garrison days, Keith pining for Shiro while Lance is pining for Keith?, M/M, Mixed/Alternating POVs, Rivals to Friends to Lovers to SOULMATES??!!?, Season 1 onward, Slow Burn, Somewhat Canon-Compliant but I'm not above punching canon in the face, These insecure space gays don't even know what's good for them
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-06 18:56:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17350745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/comeincomeout/pseuds/comeincomeout
Summary: Keith wouldn't call what happened with Shiro a “break-up.” Shiro and Adam “broke up.” Shiro and Keith had more of a “tell your best friend you've been profoundly and desperately in love with him since the day you met, get let down embarrassingly easy, throw a big old temper tantrum, then let him fly off to space without saying sorry only to watch his so-called obituary on the evening news” kind of thing going on. And Keith's glad he's okay. And he's glad they're, uh, “defending the universe” together. And he's sure they'll work it out, because Shiro and him are good at working things out, and then they'll have a “it's worked out!” thing.But he just doesn't understand why Lance McClain keeps bursting into the room every time he tries to bring it up.





	One-Track

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, I have a lot of feelings about Keith learning to accept love and finding a relationship that’s good for him! Ahh! In the spirit of not really paying attention to the later seasons right now, this is kind of a long-winded thing that starts in season 1 and goes through, like, season 5? I wanna say? Maybe more? 
> 
> I hope it’s intelligible and enjoyable B-)

It's been three weeks, one day, and about four hours since Keith found Shiro unconscious on a table in the middle of the Arizona desert. He stares at the starry sky through the closest window in the Castle—a round, small port behind the dinner table—as he drags his fork across his plate, sat alone on one end of the table. The ship hums around him, grounded but always on standby. 

He always knew the universe was a whole lot of nothing, but all this time watching lightyears of black space dotted only with distant stars float by made it so starkly real. And being grounded on Arus is somehow only making it worse.

“The people of Arus wish to host a celebration with us inside the Castle before we depart,” Allura is saying, taking in small spoonfuls of vibrant green space goo between her thoughts, “Perhaps sooner is better?”

“Celebration?” Lance says, leaning over and elbowing Hunk in the side, “Being a space knight isn't too bad, is it? You might almost die fighting giant, freaky robot gladiators, but you get a party out of it.”

“Space _Paladin_ ,” Pidge says, rolling her eyes. Lance sticks his tongue out, the surface tinted vaguely green from dinner. Keith's vision keeps drifting to Shiro's empty chair, adjacent to his own. Allura must have the same thing on her mind, and their eyes meet as they both try to look away.

“I'll speak with Shiro about it tomorrow,” she says, nodding at Keith, “I know he's eager to depart.” 

No one else seems at all worried about who's going where and when and why, Hunk and Lance already engaged in side conversation and Pidge trailing one finger along the full page of a small notebook open next to her plate. Keith looks down at his mostly full plate and clears his throat, pushing his chair out and standing. He heads for the exit.

“Bye, I guess,” Hunk says. Keith looks back towards the table and finds everyone watching him except Pidge. Hunk and Allura seem concerned; Lance just looks offended. Keith rubs the side of his nose and glances at the doorway.

“I’m just going to do some training. I’ll see you guys around.”

He doesn’t wait around for approval on his parting words, ducking out into the hallway. More of the small, port windows line the path. All the windows on the Castle are unshuttered tonight, and the emptiness of space is just restricted to the night sky over the wide, green plains of Arus. Keith knows he'll be up there again in a matter of days, surrounded by a vacuum, trapped with just his thoughts.

He walks past the training room, towards the living quarters. It's warm tonight; he shrugs off his jacket and ties it around his waist, brushing some hair from his eyes. He can still hear the distant noise of Lance and Pidge arguing at the table, but it fades with every step.

Shiro was gone seventeen months and three days. He was gone, and now he's not. And they're in space. They fly lions, they both form into and fight against giant robots, and still finishing up dinner are their two very new, very alien friends from thousands of years ago and thousands of lightyears away. Keith wishes he were outside on Arus so he could find a pebble to kick as he trudges down the hallway towards the living quarters, but the chrome floor beneath him is as sleek and slick as ever. They're in space. It's a lot to think about—to process, to understand, to be okay with. 

But all Keith can think about is every time Shiro stands next to him. Every time his hand brushes against Keith's as they run, every time every time he's talking to someone else but catches his eyes anyway, every time he _refuses_ to catch his eyes like it's just the wrong time and place. Keith will always wait for him to slip up and look. That was sort of always the problem for him: the inevitable instability of his one-track mind. The last time he saw Shiro before three weeks, one day, and about four hours and fifteen minutes ago, he told him he never wanted to see him again. The last time he saw him before that, he told him he thought he was, he guesses, in love with him.

So, okay, he just won't mention it. 

Keith doesn't knock when he gets to Shiro's room, just presses his hand against the button and lets the large door slide open in front of him. Only one of the two lights within turns on right away, dim, and Keith can't see anything but a Shiro-shaped lump on the bed. 

The space is bare and empty, just like his own, hardly lived in. Keith noticed some of the others pasting up photos in their own rooms the other day, like this was a new dormitory or something… They don't get it. Shiro gets it.

“Shiro?”

After a beat, Shiro's head pops out from beneath the blanket, the white tuft of his hair flattened towards one side, his eyes dilated from the dark. He had it bad in the fight against Sendack's Gladiator. He won't say it, but Keith saw him getting knocked about out there; he heard the way he was breathing as they laboured back onto the Castle earlier today. He rests one hand on the doorframe, watching Shiro stir.

“Sorry, if you were asleep—” Keith begins to pull the door shut manually.

“Don't worry.” Shiro lifts himself up with some effort, sitting on top of the disturbed blanket, absently smoothing it out beneath him to remake the sheets. He gestures Keith forward; Keith lets the door go, it left still half-open, and goes to sit on the bed. 

He pauses mid-movement, looking at Shiro. He can't mention it. Don't mention it. _Don't_ mention it.

“Do you need anything? Water, something to eat, more blankets—”

“I'm okay,” Shiro says, steadying a hand on his stomach as he evens his breath. “What about you?”

Keith doesn't really answer. It's absurd, but he can't make himself move. He stays put, one knee up on the bed, one hand outstretched, and looks back at the half-opened door. The hallway, polished and dimly lit, is empty. This ship is big enough that they might as well be alone on it. 

Shiro keeps breathing the same way, slowly in and out, until whatever pain's plaguing him passes and he can lean back against the wall. His left hand is still against his stomach, the metal reflective in the lamplight. Keith still isn't used to it.

Keith finally sits on the side of the bed, watching the empty hall and listening to the sounds of the ship. 

“I knew you were out there. No one—no one else tried, but I _knew_ —” He turns, looking at Shiro. “I knew.”

“Thank you.” Shiro smiles. Keith catches his eyes, looks at him perhaps a bit incredulously, and Shiro chuckles. Keith scowls.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Shiro is still smiling, and Keith hates him just a little bit. That he can endure all he endured for the last year, endure Keith before and now Keith after, have whatever kind of bruise is forming on his abdomen right now make it difficult to even breathe—and just smile. 

“Shiro,” Keith says, wrinkling his nose and looking down at the floor. Don't mention it. Don't—

“Are you sure you're okay?” Shiro says, watching Keith. His eyes are easy to feel, the gaze strong and most unfortunately comforting. “We haven't sat down a lot since all this.” 

Keith exhales. 

“You're upset with me, right?”

Shiro blinks, his smile disappearing, his eyebrows turning upwards. “You and the Red Lion saved our lives out there.”

“Hey, not about that.”

Shiro's expression doesn't change, but he won't say anything else.

“When you were gone, all I could think—I was being so stupid, you know?” Keith won't look at him, his eyes trained anywhere else, following the piping on the walls as it disappears into vents and crevices. “I should've apologized before you left.”

“I—” Shiro starts, but Keith isn't really listening. He kneads the bedsheet with one hand, clenching and unclenching his fingers, eyes drifting in thought.

“I was going to send a message but I didn't know what to write. It all sounded like bullshit. It was bullshit. I couldn't even figure out what I wanted to say, everything sounded fake, like the kind of one-liner you could just find in a stupid Hallmark card in the damn grocery store for, like, 2 for 1.99—”

“Keith.”

Shiro's hand is on top of his then, larger and firmer pressing his fingers flat against the blanket. The wrinkles of the duvet smooth underneath the weight of both their hands, and Keith still doesn't want to look up. He just can't look at him. He's somewhere in between swelling in his return from the dead and, somehow, still achingly missing him—like this Shiro here is different than the one he sent off to Kerberos. Like neither of them will ever get any old versions of themselves back.

“You weren't the only one that needed to apologize. I hurt you,” Shiro says.

If it were anybody else, Keith might pull his hand away and bite back with a crisp, _Yeah, you did!_ , but Shiro was always self-aware enough for the both of them. Keith has replayed the conversations they had back then so many times in his head they may as well be engraved onto his eardrums. 

Keith bites his lip. He thinks he sees Shiro's eyes flick downward, watching; he swallows and ignores it.

“Well, I don't care anymore, Shiro. I don't care about any of that. If you don't—if you don't _want_ me like that—”

There's a hissing noise as the ajar door slides fully open mid-sentence. Keith twists his body around, one hand instinctively reaching towards the dagger on the back of his belt, like an intrusion right now is the most threatening thing that could happen to him out here. 

Lance is standing there, tilted slightly forward, one hand raised to rap on the now-absent door. He blinks.

“Hey, uh, Shiro, knock knock—okay, the door just—it just opens by itself, right—hey! It's Lance. Pilots the blue lion? Kind of saved our lives in the last fight? That Lance. Just checking in to see if everything's okay with you. You didn't eat with us.”

Lance stands back and slouches like it's just another normal day back at the Garrison for him, his other hand shoved thoughtlessly in his pocket, looking around the room for Shiro. Keith—sitting directly between Shiro and the door, ready to pull the dagger from his belt and throw it—interrupts his line of sight with a particularly unfriendly look.

“He's fine,” he says.

“Oh.” Lance frowns with his entire face, blowing air out of one side of his mouth. “You're here. Yeah, totally. You'd totally be here.”

Shiro adjusts like he's going to say something polite, but whatever pain is coming in waves to his stomach must return as he opens his mouth to inhale and can't manage much more than that. Keith stands up from the bed, his hands balled into defensive fists.

“Leave him alone. He needs to rest.”

Lance's eyes shift sideways from Keith to Shiro and then right back to Keith, comically squinting as he takes his hands out of his pockets.

“I'm just trying to help out, Mullet, okay—”

“He doesn't need your help! No one ever asked you to—!”

“Keith.” Shiro winces, leaning just far enough over to touch Keith again, steadying a few fingers on his elbow in subtle warning, and just looks at Lance. Keith tries not to launch himself across the room in electric shock. “I'm doing just fine. The fight took a lot out of everyone, but you don't need to worry about me. Really.”

Lance seems more than a little satisfied with that, glancing between Keith and Shiro one last time before cracking a grin. Looking at it is the visual equivalent of hearing nails scrape across a chalkboard for Keith: obnoxious and unwelcome. He just wants him to go away. He tries to will the door shut with his brain, Lance caught right in the middle of it, smushed against the wall until he has to wriggle free and go running back down the hall. 

“Well, okay,” Lance says, leaning one arm on the wall, “If you're feeling better soon, maybe we can do some training or something.”

“I'd like that,” Shiro says in the voice he uses when he's teaching. Warmer and slower than he normally speaks, a little lower in pitch, a little more vibrato for effect. The way he spoke to Keith the first time they met. 

Lance smirks again, as if bare minimum politeness is some kind of great achievement, like he thinks Shiro actually _wants_ to spend time with him—

“Sweet.” He stands up straight, putting both hands back in the pockets of his jacket. He steals a last narrowed glance at Keith, like he's sizing him up as competition. “See ya.”

Keith must be gripping the blanket again because Shiro's hand is on top of his once more, forcing him to unfurl his fingers. He doesn't look back at him, and he doesn't look at Lance either. He picks a spot at the wall and frowns at it until he hears the _whoosh_ of the door closing fully behind Lance, shutting out the hallway, the dim light of Shiro's undecorated bedroom all that's left. He exhales. He doesn't know how to pick back up the conversation; it was hard enough the first time to choke out words he only half means, pretend that any of this is _okay_ when all he wants, really, is a time machine to go back to exactly seventeen months, three weeks, four days, and about five hours before he thought grabbing Shiro by the collar and kissing him goodbye against the wall of his small, dark bedroom was at all a good idea. 

The hum of machinery, usually relaxing, is starting to make his ears ring. 

“You should go rest,” Shiro says after a moment. He gently lifts his hand from Keith's, leaning fully back against the wall.

“I'm fine. We can talk—” 

“For me. I'm asking you to rest for me.”

Keith looks behind him and finds Shiro's eyes. He hates when the older pilot looks at him like he's too fragile to press against too firmly, like he's some kind of irreparable ticking time bomb… like he's the same snot-nosed, defenseless kid Shiro met lost in his first year at the Academy. Don't mention it. Don't mention it. Shiro _won't_ mention it, apparently.

“Whatever,” Keith says. Shiro smiles again, then tilts his head back against the wall and lets his eyes fall shut. Keith tries very hard not to watch him, but he can't help it sometimes; he takes a few deep breaths, contemplating Shiro’s rest, then scoffs and gets up. Shiro doesn't stir with the movement, perfectly at peace. Somehow.

Keith shows himself out and smashes his hand against the ‘close’ button once he's in the hall. He pauses a moment, holding in his breath, then exhales and turns towards the other quarters.

He walks past his room, the impersonal walls and cold, thin blanket the least inviting thing to him right now. He's not sure what time it is—he never is out here—but all he feels like doing is walking. Cooling off and calming down.

He wishes he wouldn't replay that night over and over in his head. The full moonlight directed diagonally through the single window. The tinned sound of the evening news coming through the wall from the neighbouring room. Shiro in just his Garrison t-shirt and shorts in the middle of the summer, his hands balled into frustrated fists.

_“Adam and I split up.” “Oh. That sucks.”_

Keith was always at Shiro's place. Keith hated his dormitory, his roommates and floormates and everyone who tried to get him to give them the time of day. He can't remember why Shiro was there that night, of all places, but Shiro was there that night: a little damaged, a little distracted, a little short-fused. Keith really, really didn't want him to go anywhere, let alone across the solar system.

_“So don't go.” “Don't. Don't do that. I need you on my side.” “I am on your side, Shiro. I just mean maybe he's right, maybe you shouldn't go—“ “Is that why you're saying that? Because you're on my side? Is that really why you're saying that?” “We're on the same side!”_

He doesn't want to mention it, he really shouldn't want to mention it, but he can't get it out of his mind. The way Shiro said he was going to go home early, held up against the way he didn't protest, not really, when Keith grabbed him by the shirt collar and pulled him back into the room. Spun him around and didn't let him look away.

_“So don't go!”_

The way that Shiro let him slam him against the equally undecorated Garrison dormitory wall like he must've wanted it to happen. He was twice Keith's size and infinitely better trained for incoming threats, but he didn't move a muscle as he let Keith stand on his toes to bring their mouths together. He didn't push him off. He didn't tell him not to. 

_“Hey. Please don't go.”_

Keith shoves his hands in his pockets as he walks through the halls and wishes this impossibly big ship was somehow even bigger. He doesn't want to be within a thousand feet of another person. He wants to climb out one of the airlocks, float into the sky, and drift endlessly through space like a fragment of some forgotten comet. Shiro _let_ him.

_“I think I love you. I think that's what this is.”_

Shiro kissed him back. He sat down on the bed with him and put his hands all over him and let him go to sleep thinking it was all going to be—

_“_ What? _” “It's not like that, Keith. I can't—I don't want it to be like that.” “That's_ not _what you said last night.” “I made a mistake. You and me would be the biggest mistake in either of our lives. I need you to get that.”_

—fine. Just fine. Keith grips the dagger on his belt with one sweaty, angry hand. He squeezes his eyes shut once he's through the next door, stopping with his other hand pressed up against the wall to steady himself, leaning over so his hair falls below.

He doesn't care about that anymore. He can't care about that anymore. He has to say that and mean it because Shiro died—oh, not fucking really, but that's what it looked like and that's what it felt like. He died, he was gone, and they really left each other like _that_ , no thanks to Keith.

_“Have fun on Kerberos. Maybe you should just fucking stay there.”_

He just wants to talk about it.

“Hey!” 

Keith opens his eyes with a short gasp, the room swirling back to life around him, one hand still on his dagger and the other splayed flat against the wall. He pulls them both back and turns around. Lance is a few feet away, sharing the room with him for who knows how long.

“Are you following me?” he leers, eyeing Keith suspiciously. Keith makes a noise that's probably the exact sort of noise trash compacters make when they have to crush up something particularly difficult and stubborn.

“No,” Keith says matter-of-factly, levelling his voice. “I'm walking around.” 

“Yeah, but it's a pretty big ship.” 

Lance is alone in the Lounge, the curved couches all empty, the lights bright overhead. He's stood lobbing a small, blue bouncy ball at the closest partition, ricocheting it off the floor, against the wall piping, and back into his open hand in perfect rhythm. His sneakers are untied. Keith notices the laces sliding dangerously around the floor as he shuffles back and forth with each throw and catch.

“Go somewhere else then.”

“I was _trying_ to go to Shiro's room, but I guess it's off-limits!”

Keith frowns. Lance isn't looking at him anymore, fully focused back on the single-player wall-ball game he's got going on. 

“You should knock on doors. We were having a private conversation. I don't know if you got that.”

“Actually, I'm not stupid,” Lance quips, throwing the ball once more at the partition, “Obviously you guys are close, but I wasn't there to jump in your business. _Blech_.”

Keith steps between Lance and the wall, catching the ball with one hand before it makes impact. Lance balks, his balance teetering faintly to one leg.

“What did you hear?” Keith asks. He stares at him.

“Uh, nothing—” Lance cuts himself off and quirks a brow, leaning over to try to swipe the ball back away. Keith steps backwards, pulling it closer to his side. The heel of one boot grazes the wall.

“Just leave me alone. And leave Shiro alone while you're at it. Don't you already have your friends here?”

“Dude, I think you missed the part where we're all supposed to be a team.”

“I guess I must have.” Keith frowns, daring Lance to say something smart back. 

Lance pauses before a half-hearted scoff escapes his mouth and he stretches both arms above his head, his shirt riding up and his back making this awful, hollow _pop!_ noise. Lance doesn't seem bothered by it at all, bending over and pressing all of his fingertips to the ground before standing back up straight. Keith pulls a face.

“O-kay, Keith,” Lance says, dragging out the syllables for emphasis, “You're probably just jealous I'm actually a way better pilot than you. I get it.” 

“What?”

Lance raises a hand and points one finger at him. “Exactly.”

Keith steps away from the wall and inexplicably shoves the small, blue bouncy ball into his jacket pocket. Lance jumps up at the action, waving his arm around like a bratty kid as Keith elbows past him to leave. Keith's least favourite thing about him is probably that he just won't ever stay still; he's always tapping his foot, twisting his fingers, bouncing off the walls to get someone's attention. Keith dodges out of the way and hustles to the door.

“Hey, now you're stealing my stuff? Keith. Keith! _Keith._ ” 

Lance drones on and on, long past the point of Keith walking out into the hallway, but doesn't chase after him.

Keith tries to retrace the route he took before, wandering hallway after hallway. He passes Shiro's room, the door still shut, no light spilling out through the cracks, and carries on. He finally arrives back in his own quarters, just across the hall from Lance's with its open door and already-full closet, and goes in. He shuts the door and sits on the edge of the bed. 

He pulls the ball from his pocket and begins bouncing it off the far wall.


End file.
